‘No, Mum, she’s not said a word.’ Daisy’s mother was peeling potatoes, a mound of them, and talking to Elsie at the same time, when Daisy stalked into the kitchen, catching her mother and her nan in the act.
‘Were you talking about me?’ she asked them, knowing full well they were.
Her mother and her nan looked around guiltily. Her nan rallied first, going on the attack.
‘You should be ashamed of yourself, worrying your mother like this,’ she began. ‘You come back home, refusing to say what happened. She thought she’d got rid of you, and here you are, turning up again like a bad penny.’
‘Thanks, Nan.’ Got rid of me, indeed! Charming!
‘I’m right, aren’t I, Sandra?’ Daisy’s nan said. ‘Now take our David, he’s no trouble to anybody.’
Yeah, well, when you’re a saint you’re not going to cause anyone any trouble, Daisy thought sarcastically. Her brother was the perfect son, the golden boy, the only man on the planet who could do no wrong, hence her nickname for him – Saint David. He was another bloke she couldn’t compete with.
‘Now Mum, leave our Daisy alone. I’m sure she’s got her reasons,’ her mother said, in a rare show of solidarity for Daisy. Nan scowled at her daughter.
Not for the first time in the four days since she’d walked out of Freddie’s house, Daisy almost regretted her decision to move back in with her mother. Maybe she should have stayed put and fronted it out, rather than leave Freddie to wallow in the stew of his own making, though, from what she could see, Freddie wasn’t exactly doing much in the way of wallowing. She’d heard that Carl had moved in. If Freddie was doing any wallowing, he was doing it with Carl, in the bed Daisy had once slept in with Freddie, leaving Daisy to cram herself in a box room filled with crap, and trying to muck along with two very opinionated and set-in-their-ways elderly women.
Daisy envied Saint David with all her green, little heart.
‘Well?’ Elsie demanded.
‘What, Nan?’
‘Are you going to explain why you walked out of a perfectly good house and away from a perfectly good man, if you can call any man “good”, to move back in with us?’ Elsie was relentless.
It was time to spill the beans. The pair of them would only keep on at her until she did.
‘Because he’s been having an affair – with a man.’ There, she’d said it. She wished she didn’t have to, but her nan, and to some extent her mother (though her mother was more subtle about it) had been demanding an explanation ever since she’d rocked up with her suitcases, a face like thunder, and a heart to match. Besides, word was bound to get around, and they’d find out sooner or later anyway. She might as well get it over with.
‘Eh, what?’ Elsie said.
‘You heard.’ Daisy had no intention of repeating it.
‘You say Freddie is doing the dirty with a fella? Well, I never!’ Her nan sat back in her chair and folded her arms. ‘I always said there was something fishy about that Freddie of yours. You should have listened to me.’
‘You say that about every man you’ve ever met,’ Daisy retorted, aware that the older woman had just contradicted herself – only a few minutes ago she was singing his praises.
Her grandmother generally disliked all men, except for Saint David. Her mother wasn’t keen on them either. Daisy’s fear was that she, herself, was speeding along the same path, to end up her mother’s age, hating the opposite sex, and being a lonely spinster.
‘At least that Freddie didn’t get you pregnant,’ her nan stated. ‘Though you are looking a bit porky around the stomach.’
‘Thanks,’ Daisy said. ‘I can’t help it if I comfort eat.’ Her appetite had come back with a vengeance after that first awful day, and she hadn’t stopped eating since. Chocolate mostly, so her mother had taken to hiding the tin of Quality Street under the stairs. It had taken Daisy less than five minutes to find it, and now the chocolates were more than half gone, and Daisy would have to go out and buy another tin.
‘Is David joining us for lunch?’ she asked, to change the subject.
‘He’s always here for Sunday lunch.’ Daisy heard the reprimand in her mother’s voice. Sandra added, ‘He’s gone to fetch Gee-Gee.’
Daisy felt a tad guilty – she hadn’t seen her great-grandmother in weeks. ‘How is she?’
‘Old,’ was Nan’s reply.
And she wasn’t wrong. When David, closely followed by his wife Zoe, manoeuvred Gee-Gee’s wheelchair over the doorstep and into the hall, Daisy was shocked to see how old her great-gran looked. Still, ninety-six was a good age, and at least she was lucid. More or less. Some of the time.
‘Daisy,’ she said gummily, holding her arms out.
Daisy leaned in for a kiss and regretted it when the old woman slobbered on her cheek.
‘What are we having?’ Gee-Gee asked.
‘Beef,’ Sandra said.
‘Eh?’
‘Beef.’ Sandra yelled this time.
‘No need to shout,’ Gee-Gee said, and Daisy sniggered. Sunday lunch at her mum’s house could be rather entertaining, if a little fraught.
‘What are you doing here?’ Gee-Gee demanded, staring at Elsie.
‘I live here.’
‘Why? I thought you had your own house. David, doesn’t Elsie have her own house?’
‘Not for quite some time now, Gee-Gee,’ David said, wheeling the old lady into the living room. As he passed Daisy he whispered, ‘I hear you’ve moved back in.’
Daisy scowled at his smug expression. It was alright for him, with his perfect life. He had no idea what she’d just been through.
Elsie soon enlightened him. ‘’Ere, David, guess what? That Freddie has got himself a bit on the side.’
Yep, that about summed it up.
Zoe let out a squeal of laughter and Daisy narrowed her eyes at the younger woman. She failed to understand what David saw in his wife, aside from the long blond hair, big blue eyes, and upturned nose.
‘What?’ David paused his wheelchair duties, and even Gee-Gee perked up. ‘Come again?’ he said.
‘Daisy’s young man,’ Elsie said loudly, ‘has been having an affair, with another man. That’s why our Daisy has come back home to live.’
‘Is it true?’ David’s eyes lit up in glee. Sibling rivalry was still alive and kicking, then.
‘Yes,’ Daisy muttered, her face pink. It was a wonder her great-gran didn’t feel the heat coming off her cheeks and demand someone help her remove her coat (she had a habit of keeping it on, regardless of the temperature).
‘That sort of thing didn’t happen in my day,’ Gee-Gee said, to no one in particular.
Zoe giggled again. She giggled a lot, usually at inappropriate times. Daisy thought she was a bit… vacant? dumb? dippy? Probably all three.
Gee-Gee piped up, ‘That’s nice, three generations of women together in the same house. Like Macbeth’s witches.’
Daisy grinned, until she realised that the three witches her great-gran was referring to, was Daisy, Sandra, and Elsie. ‘I don’t think the Macbeth witches were related, Gee-Gee, and with you here, that makes four.’
‘There’s six of us. I can count, you know.’
Daisy was confused for a moment, until she realised her great-gran was including David and Zoe. ‘I mean, four generations of women: you, nan, mum and me,’ she added but Gee-Gee wasn’t listening.
‘None of you can keep a man for love nor money,’ Gee-Gee said. ‘There’s something wrong with the lot of you. Zoe, hang on to our David, else you’ll end up like this lot. Bitter.’
‘I’m not bitter,’ Daisy protested, then realised that she was. Very.
Four years she’d wasted on Freddie, and here she was at the other end of those years in exactly the same position as she’d been at the start of them.
Actually, that wasn’t true. She was in a worse position, because during those years when Daisy thought she was happily home-making, her nan had moved into the family home, forcing Daisy to sleep in the little box room which had once belonged to her brother.
Daisy had gone from smug, self-satisfied contentment to bitterness, envy, and despair in the space of a week. And during those years, Saint David had qualified as a dentist, got married, and had bought a lovely four-bed detached house in a nice village.
At least, Daisy said to herself, I can’t sink much lower than this.